


Care and Feeding of Dragons

by Beth Winter (BethWinter)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, The Princess and the Queen & The Rogue Prince - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, I mean happier than the original story, I think there's at least three times as many main characters left alive at least, Misses Clause Challenge, Polyamory, happier ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethWinter/pseuds/Beth%20Winter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacaerys doesn't know anything more about Nettles beyond the fact she's a dragonrider and a shepherdess and-</p>
<p>He remembers the girl coaxed one of the most stubborn and vicious creatures in Westeros to eat out of her hand.</p>
<p>He knows exactly what he'll ask her to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Care and Feeding of Dragons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [l_cloudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/gifts).



None on Dragonstone expect Sheepstealer to be tamed after so many perished trying. The first reaction to the dragon flying over the castle is to scramble their own dragons to defend it. When Sheepstealer circles Seasmoke almost playfully instead of going for the kill, Jacaerys breathes a sigh of relief. This is one more dragon he can use for his mother's cause, and one less battle to fight.

Alyn nearly chokes on his sputtering when the girl slides down from the dragon's back. She's brown haired, brown skinned, and named Nettles for the sting of her words. No-one knows her parentage, but she has none of the dragonseed look. Addam and Alyn have the Valyrian hair and eyes, as does Ulf, and even Hugh has the purple eyes under hair that's more blond than silver and gold. Hugh's the one who starts muttering about sorcery.

Jace cuts it down cold. He knows his own hair is just as brown, and he is Prince of Dragonstone.

That night, Alyn and Nettles argue so heatedly that the invectives start breaking through the bard's songs at dinner. They've taken the quarrel to the hallway, but the distance isn't enough to drown their voices. Three seats from Jace's left Addam is snickering into his wine over his brother's indignation. Seating a bastard so close when his own trueborn stepsisters are at the table is a Dornish thing to do, but Jace doesn't have any stones to throw there.

What he can do is step in before Alyn stops arguing about - seasonal wind patterns over Blackwater Bay, really? - and starts on the scars that Sheepstealer left on his back when he tried to be a dragonrider like Addam. Before Lord Velaryon, who is already frowning, takes his bastard grandson's side. Before the sorcery rumours take hold for good.

Alyn still doesn't have the strength for more than helping Lord Velaryon with the fleet administration, so the girl's the one that needs occupation to keep them apart. As Jace rises to his feet, he considers setting her to arms training with Hugh and Ulf, though he noticed them ignoring her below the salt at dinner. Running courier to his Lord Father in Harrenhall would let her practice her flying over lands that are loyal to the blacks. He doesn't know anything more about this girl beyond the fact she's a dragonrider and a shepherdess and-

The next breath he takes feels a little like the dreams Helaena once told him about. That feeling like flying, like a tumbling coin at the apex of its arc.

He remembers this girl coaxed one of the most stubborn and vicious creatures in Westeros to eat out of her hand.

He holds on to that thought even when he sees that Nettles is grinning and she and Alyn are ruining a large sheet of parchment by scribbling wind patterns all over it.

*

The chamber is dark. The windows are uncovered, but Rhaenyra doesn't see the light. She eats when food is placed in front of her, sometimes. It's quiet in her bed. It's empty.

She notices the girl's smell first of all. She hasn't had a proper bath herself in a while, but there's no way she smells of sheep manure. Sheep manure and dragon muck. That's Dragonstone in the summer. The meadows high up in the mountains, not the castle. The mountainsides, where only sheep can climb.

"Sheep and shepherds," the girl says, which is when Rhaenyra realises she was talking out loud.

She turns over to face the wall, but that smell gets everywhere. The dragon muck gets stronger, too. Three days into the girl's daily vigil, she can barely smell the sheep manure.

The girl isn't giving her food or making any attempts to bathe her. After three days, the spark of Rhaenyra's curiosity catches fire enough to make her ask the reason for her presence.

"Jace said you're the smartest person on Dragonstone," the girl says. "Smarter than the maesters."

Not smart enough, Rhaenyra wants to say, but instead she latches on to something else. "Prince Jacaerys."

"Alyn and Addam call him Jace."

"Who?" She remembers the names from one of Jace's visits, but only through the fog of darkness.

"Addam and Alyn Waters of Hull," the girl explains. "Addam's Seasmoke's. Alyn tried for Sheepstealer, but I was better. He's helping the old geezer now."

"Lord Corlys Velaryon," Rhaenyra corrects her, even as the dragon names drift into her consciousness. Sheepstealer, the wild dragon. So this smelly girl has Valyrian blood?

The girl snorts. "He's a corpse. He creaks when he walks."

"He's the Sea Snake," Rhaenyra says. "He was my father in law, and cousin by marriage." The memory rises, of how a dynastic marriage brought her a family closer than her own father. She'd wake Corlys and Rhaenys in the night for counsel, when Alicent's scheming drove her from her dreams. Rhaenys always understood, and Corlys always had ideas, and now Rhaenys and- and-

The bed shifts as the girl sits down on it. "Jace likes him. Jace's got shit for brains sometimes. Usually when family's involved."

There's something warm and sharp in Rhaenyra's chest. Like a burning pine bough, its needles twisting and turning like snakes in the flame, sending off sparks. She rolls to her back.

"He likes you," the girl says. "Shit for brains."

Rhaenyra remembers what it felt like to clench her fists. Her fingernails have grown long now, pressing deep into the centre of her palms.

"You're the queen," the girl says. "You're the shepherd. Shepherd locks himself into the hut to feel sorry for himself, the whole flock wanders off the cliff."

"I can kill you, girl."

"You're too lazy for that." The girl's brown-haired, dark-skinned, and that colour's not all sheep dung. "Like your dragon. I put a sheep where she has to move to reach it, Syrax won't bother."

Those sparks tickle, and Rhaenyra feels her chest shake before she realises she's laughing. "Are you training her too? Herding her?"

The girl shrugs. "I'm a shepherd. It's what I do."

Rhaenyra waves a magnanimous arm. "Tell me your name, girl."

"Nettles. Nettie." Her teeth are whiter than they should be. "What do I call you?"

"I," Rhaenyra rolls to face her, her hair sticking to the pillow, her breasts unbound and flopping like two fat fish, "am the Realm's fucking Delight."

*

Viserys has the misfortune of being really bright and really easily bored, which when you're seven and a half years old results in reading every book on shelves low enough to reach and learning words like misfortune and bellicose and gravid.

It's mostly because everyone except for him and Aegon is big enough to have something to do with the war, even if Rhaena and Baela aren't supposed to, and Aegon has a dragon to spend time with while Viserys only has a stupid egg. Father's gone so he doesn't even get the rides on Caraxes that always make him scream and Father laugh when they drop straight to the sea surface. And Mother-

He hasn't seen Mother since Luke died. Jace says she's fine, just very sad, but he won't let him go inside to check. When their sister died four months back, they didn't let Viserys look at her either, and he's only a little afraid that Mother will die and he won't get to look at her, and the last memory will be like the whispers he heard that little Visenya was born with a tail and scales and a hole where her heart should be.

So in the mornings he takes a book and climbs in the window niche nearest to Mother's chambers. No-one notices until the dragonseed girl starts visiting. She winks at him when she passes. He practices in the mirror until he can wink back the same way.

On her fifth visit, she goes back out almost straight away and looks around like she's expecting a servant. The servants and ladies are all too scared of Mother to come near, so Viserys volunteers to go fetch them, and the water and herbs the girl wants. He sneaks in with them, because Jace never said he couldn't help carry water pails.

Mother's yelling at everyone, growling like Caraxes or Syrax, and the servants scatter like sheep, so there's no-one for Viserys to hide behind. Except Mother's not angry with him, or sad, but she says "circle!" like the way you play the flying game where one dragon attacks to make the other retreat to where the third is waiting to knock them on the wing and make them drop. So Viserys knows that when Mother takes a swipe at the dragonseed girl, he can push her and drop her straight into the tub.

The girl throws a pail of water at Mother's head, and they're both screaming, and he's learning many new words. He'd write them down, but he's so wet he's dripping.

Once she's out of the bath, Mother catches him in a length of cloth that's longer than he is and tangles him in it until he's dry. She and the girl - Nettles, he's pretty sure that's the one name that kept repeating - are all screamed out, so they settle to try to make sense of Mother's hair. He finds a piece of paper to write down the things Mother says when Nettles threatens to just cut it all off, because he'll have to ask the maester about some of them. Or maybe Father once he gets back from Harrenhall.

*

The infernal girl enlists more servants to clean Rhaenyra's quarters. Under a pile of discarded robes, they find a cradle carved with dragons.

"I want that burned," Rhaenyra says. "Now."

"You can burn it yourself." Nettles is setting up some foolish flower arrangement in a vase. "In the courtyard."

"I don't want to go into the courtyard."

The girl just looks at her, eyebrows raised.

Rhaenyra broods. She's not at the point of speaking it out loud, and she's not sure if she'll ever be. The cradle is the loss of her father and her daughter, the girl she couldn't mourn, had no time to mourn, the girl her own fury twisted into a monster that died without taking a breath. The cradle is the loss of her fierce, bright Luke. The cradle is what Daemon did in payment for the death of his favourite son.

She has to do something to get that look off Nettles' face, and it's easier than speaking to get up and carry the cradle into the courtyard. She keeps her eyes straight all the way down. She focuses on not losing her breath. She's still fat with childbirth, she's slept for months, she hasn't ridden her dragon in over a year. The cradle is heavy. It takes all her will just to get to the courtyard without stumbling.

There's a pile of hay already waiting, big enough to surround the cradle. Someone gives her a lit brand to throw on it. The fire catches quickly.

She didn't watch Visenya's pyre, and her father was burned by Alicent in King's Landing. Lucerys didn't have one - for all she knows his bones still wait in Storm's End for the traitor's fall. This bonfire is small and too-bright, and it doesn't smell at all like a Targaryen funeral, but it helps.

It's twilight. Someone touches her arm. Jace is there, her brave boy, and when did he start wearing that circlet? The girls and Aegon are next to him, holding hands. Joffrey looks like he came straight from sword practice, still in a padded hauberk. She remembers when Laenor carried him into this courtyard to announce his name.

There are others around them, familiar faces, old friends. Her Queensguard, though Ser Steffon is missing. Next to them, two boys who look like Laenor did when they were wed, and two more men with Valyrian looks, one slim and haggard, one hulking and tall.

The girl isn't there at all.

*

They call him the Sea Snake, but for Corlys Velaryon, that name belongs to his ship. She's out of the water now, slowly rotting in the main square in Driftmark, just as he's rotting away in Dragonstone. Standing at a window in Windwyrm tower, he has the desperate mad urge to order the ship cut down and floated again, to board her and sail to Asshai or to the seven hells. He's as much use as a sailor now as that old pile of driftwood. Three quarters of a century, a dead wife and two dead children.

The dragonseed girl whistles to get his attention, and for a moment it sounds to his ears like the change of watch signal. Nettles, he remembers from Alyn's rants. Waters, presumably, though she claims no family name at all.

"What do you want?" he asks.

"Her highest self's wanting to see you." Nettles is markedly cleaner these days, and there might even be a little Targaryen in that slim nose. "When you can drag yourself there."

"What about?" He doesn't expect an exact answer, but it's interesting to see what the girl's impression is. Of her fellow dragonseeds, Ulf is a sot and Hugh is a brute, but both have some degree of cunning. And of course there are Addam and Alyn.

"Addam and Alyn," she says, echoing his thoughts. "The bastard thing. Heir thing. Sons."

"Grandsons," he corrects, and watches her give an insolent, knowing smile. Laenor's been ash and bone nine years, how does she know enough to question the story the boys' mother has put out? "Did she mention her decision?"

Nettles grins this time. "Still won't call Alyn lord. Not when he's fool enough to confuse a mistral for a mountain wind."

"Neither of you were right, that was the ghost of a storm from the Stepstones," Corlys snaps. "You pups wouldn't know a mistral if it blew you on the spears of the merling king."

She's looking at him thoughtfully, and there's the Targaryen shadow again. It's not any single one of her features, just that look that faced him over the dinner table for three decades. Not the one that says crockery will fly before dinner's over, thank the Seven. He's too old for Targaryen temper tantrums.

"You don't like her," she says. "Rhaenyra."

"She's been like a daughter to me since she wed my son. But if she'd got off her fat ass at Rook's Nest-"

"Your wife wouldn't die."

That's why Addam and Alyn like her, he realises. There's no truth she won't speak.

"You think she'd die instead?"

"Not if there were four of them," he says. "Two against four, Rhaenys and Meleys took out Sunfire and Aegon. With Syrax too-"

"One of them could still die."

"It'd be fair." He shook his head. "She wasted Rhaenys' life."

"If she died?" There's that look again. Pushing a needle into his skin and seeing how he reacts.

"We'd be lost," he admits. "Jacaerys has all the charm Laenor could teach him, but he doesn't have the Targaryen look, nor age and fame to call banners and expect an answer. Daemon... is Daemon."

The girl turns her head to the side. He remembers that Daemon's been in the Riverlands since spring, though the old rogue doesn't need to be physically present to cause disaster. As Blood and Cheese proved.

"Be careful of Daemon Targaryen," he tells her.

"She said that." Nettles elbows him, pressing close to look out the window. Below, the young dragons are playing tug with a sheep's carcass. "That'll tear by the time they're done."

"Let's hope the kingdom wants." He elbows her right back, habit of a lifetime at a ship's railing. "Alyn Velaryon'll be too high for your eyes, girl. Leave the boy be."

"If you teach us both to tell the winds," she bargains.

"If you let me know where that broodmare went now that she's out of her cave."

"Follow the screams?"

"That could be any Targaryen. This place is infested with them."

*

Rhaenyra is torn. On one hand, she wants to tell Jace how proud she is of his strategic thinking and foresight. On the other, she wants to throw a chair at him and call him an idiot.

That would scare Viserys, though. The boy is sitting on the Painted Table over Lannisport and showing the shapes of various letters to Nettles. Teaching the girl to read keeps him occupied.

She takes a deep breath. "You anticipate defeat."

"I anticipate difficulty." Brown or not, Jace's eyes are fearless. "Aegon and Viserys can't fight. Stormcloud isn't large enough to ride, and Viserys only has an egg. We have more dragons, so we'll need to take advantage of them, move around Westeros and descend into battle. We can't carry the boys into battle, and leaving them dragonless on the ground is inviting capture."

"Dragonstone is safe," she objects.

"We thought Storm's End was safe," Jace says.

She has no answer for that. The pride is winning, because this boy of hers is Targaryen to the core. He still wears the prince's circlet, and in this room, at this table, he is the blood of Aegon the Conqueror.

She wants to throw her arms around him and hold him safe, just as she wants to do with all her children, but even here, almost alone, she won't break his resolve to be the grown support she needs. Her regent, while she mourned. Now... if she didn't need Corlys's ships, she'd name him Hand of the Queen.

"They'll go to Pentos," she says instead. "Rhaena and Baela should go as well."

"Rhaena will go to the Vale, with Joff. I tried to persuade Baela, but..." He shrugs, and for a moment he's fifteen again. He has an understanding with Baela over their betrothal, but the girl's fire has always puzzled him. "She says she wants to show me something first."

"Moondancer," Nettles says. She's climbed on the table in her pursuit of letters, from Casterly Rock all the way to Blackwater Bay where they're standing. "Baela's good."

Jace frowns. "With her dragon?"

"With flying."

The girl bares her teeth for just a moment. Now they have nine dragons large enough to ride.

*

There are ten dragonriders of the Blacks for a few short hours, though Jace only learns of it when Stormcloud crashes onto Dragonstone. The dragon is wounded more grievously than Aegon, and the news his brother brings is more grievous still.

Viserys, little bright Viserys that Daemon always told Jace to keep an eye on. His mother screams something as he runs for the dragons, but she has Aegon to nurse and Daemon's away so Jace has to be Protector of the Realm now. Vermax understands, when he climbs on her back.

Behind them, Syrax roars. She's calling out just like his mother.

Jace and Vermax haven't been in battle before. He'd taken words to the Vale and Winterfell, to Corlys's grief after his grandmother's death, and she'd been at his side as impressive or concilliatory as he needed. Now they both bend against the wind and she snorts with every curse he hisses. Viserys was supposed to be safe, the Velaryon fleet unchallenged, if those two strands of their web strain or break, the balance tips again...

He calls a curse on Criston Cole and Larys Strong. There is no point in cursing Aemond. They have all heaped curses enough on him.

Vermax dips before he picks the first point of attack. This is what it feels like to fight with a dragon: the fire is in you, flowing out of your fingers and eyes and you turn your head and she does and men scream and burn and die.

The screams echo louder. Vermax calls out and others answer. Vermithor, Silverwing, Seasmoke, Sheepstealer. They haven't practised this, but how can you practice slaughter and arson of a giant fleet? Vermax almost crashes into Silverwing on one run, dipping around Seasmoke's flame to avoid her. Jace's hair smoulders for a moment, and Addam calls out his name.

Jace grabs the reins tightly and pulls Vermax's head up until Vermithor's finished his sweep. She dives as others rise. Nothing in her path but scattered, panicked, flammable ships.

And archers.

His eye burns and he grabs at it before he realises the bolt sank into her eye. Something catches at his, her wing and tears. The world falls. They fall. Into a ship full of fire and broken, sharp wood.

He jumps, the way Daemon taught him to. The water swallows him. He rises, finds purchase on a piece of wood. There is smoke on the water, and light sinking below it. Vermax, Vermax, a hole and darkness in his mind.

Someone is screaming for archers. Jace weighs diving after Vermax against death by arrows. Fire and blood, not water. He can have a Targaryen death.

He can still hear Syrax screaming.

*

There are only three people allowed into the sickroom in Windwyrm who are not dragonriders or Queensguard. They are Maester Hunnimore, who tends to the wounded, Lord Corlys Velaryon and Alyn Velaryon, who are there by strength of kin.

Hard Hugh, Ulf the White and the girl Nettles are not kin by any but the most tenuous of suspicions, but Hugh was the one who carried Prince Jacaerys from the courtyard to the tower. Ulf flew Silverwing in her steady spiral as Addam dangled from her harness to lift the prince high enough for Tessarion to fly under them. And Nettles was the only one quick enough to urge Sheepstealer to follow Syrax's lead, sweeping fire on all ships within archery range before more than a few arrows were loosed at the heir to the throne.

They told of each other's deeds to the Lord Commander of the Queensguard, and the Queen confirmed their accounts. Lorent Marbrand knows that any of those would be enough to win a knight a white cloak. These bastards have protected his charges where he couldn't, and he'll offer them respect for it.

He offers respect to his queen as well. Since Rhaenyra treats him just as cordially and has not mentioned their argument over donning her armour, he suspects the black scales deflected enough arrows over the Gullet to be worth the delay to her flight.

He hopes that will speak in his favour when prince Daemon returns and learns his queen has been in battle. He's seen what the man can do with a sword in anger.

Lorent assigns at least two men to this chamber night and day. He himself trails Rhaenyra, who divides her time between this room and the Painted Table, where she analyses the movements of forces. Their loyal lords are close to taking Oldtown, while ravens are flying high between Harrenhall and Dragonstone, bearing messages in a cypher that Rhaenyra decodes by hand.

Lorent always respected the woman's political mind, but now that she's turned her attentions to the machinations of war, he's surprised by how much she understands of it. He has to keep in mind her chosen companions - between Criston Cole, Harwin Strong and Daemon Targaryen, someone must have taught her strategy and tactics. As she sits over the map, pale braid falling over one shoulder, he half expects to see Dark Sister at her hip.

In the sickroom, she hides her anger better. Prince Aegon's wounds are superficial and he often curls up to her as she reads from accounts of the Conqueror's battles. The baseborn dragonseeds pretend not to pay attention, but somehow they are always near at those times. The other Queensguard have told Lorent that it is the same when lord Corlys or lady Baela read from the same book. The room is quiet enough to hear the scrambling of claws on the roof. At least one dragon is always stationed there.

Prince Jacaerys still burns with a fever. The maester has doubts about both his head and his broken legs, though the arrow wound to his neck has closed surprisingly well. Lorent finds himself praying to both the Warrior and the Father for this brave young boy. Whoever his father was - by the Seven, what he did was brave enough for both the Conqueror and Breakbones.

While Rhaenyra reads, Lorent retreats into a corner that lets him see the whole of the room. Lord Corlys enters without knocking, and for once without his bastard shadow. There are benches all around the room, but he walks all the way around Jacaerys's bed to the one where Rhaenyra is seated. He must be fresh back from High Tide, from the ashes of his wondrous palace. The invaders sacked the town and burned everything, even the old ship that had taken him to Asshai.

He bends down to brush back prince Jacaerys' brown hair. The boy murmurs something in his sleep.

Corlys Velaryon sits down next to the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Rhaenyra passes him the book. He starts reading from the next sentence after the one she finished.

Lorent thinks that the dawn is coming soon.

*

There is detritus of Aegon-her-brother all over the room, but the layer of scattered bandages and wine stains cannot hide the familiar furniture. Rhaenyra remembers some of these chairs and chests from as far as her grandfather's time, yet to her the great bedchamber in Maegor's Holdfast is most of all her father's.

The night is dark, and the fires in the twin hearths barely smoulder. There is no blood on her armour, there has never been, but she remembers how it smelled of smoke for days after the Gullet. Jace's blood had been on Addam's hands that day. Arrows and blades both draw blood. In an hour, as soon as everyone is gathered, she will sit the Iron Throne that claimed her father's life.

There will be a thousand faces, but not the ones she misses. Luke. Viserys. Rhaenys. Laenor. Harwin. Her parents.

Arrax and Meleys will be there, she remembers. Green or black, Aemond had still hung their skulls in the Great Hall next to Balerion's and Quicksilver's. Vhagar's skull will hang there soon as well. She can be as magnanimous as that one-eyed viper.

She wants Aemond's head on that wall. She knew she'd have to forego that pleasure when they took King's Landing today, but she counted on Aegon and his brood. She wouldn't even strangle them, just leave the fat idiot with strongwine enough to kill him and he'd do himself in gladly. And no-one would think ill of her for taking in his orphans, children so young and in need of care. She knows in her heart that she won't bear more, not after Visenya's claws, not after the scent of that funeral pyre. It had carried from the courtyard to her window, and she'd screamed her anger into Daemon's shoulder.

Instead she gets Alicent the very noble and Helaena the mad.

The door opens with a sharp creak. The servants are usually more careful.

"I don't need assistance," Rhaenyra says. "I will wear my armour."

"Because of the swords?"

It's only Nettles, still in dusty leathers. The girl's only concession to their victory is a string of red beads that Baela forced on her before they took off from Dragonstone.

"Because I need to show them I am a warrior like my forebears. That I am not a weak woman."

Nettles slinks forward, yawning openly as she circles her. "Don't look like a Delight."

"Go fuck a donkey," Rhaenyra snorts. "It holds in my gut and teats."

"Hides your teats. They know you have them."

"Men spend too much time staring at teats. Not that you'd know, you don't have any to look at."

Nettles grins, and Rhaenyra groans.

"Yes, I saw my lord husband looking. Girl, he looks like that at anything that's flowered."

"Didn't expect that," Nettles says. "He's a killer."

That's approval, and Rhaenyra would hiss at her to stay away, but she's too tired and the image of the Iron Throne is too vivid in her eyes. "He's more like a dragon than any of us. I love him for it, but that fire can burn. You won't tame him with offerings of sheep and he'll know all your jokes already."

"He's true. He's a killer, and he's true."

"Sometimes." She wants, desperately wants all her men around her on this day. Ten years, and she wishes she could have all three of them. Ten years, and she fears to look too closely at the sadness of that year. Ten years, three children, and she's been avoiding Daemon's eyes.

There's a prick at her shoulder, and she turns around too slowly to catch Nettles and the hairpin she's stolen from Rhaenyra's hair.

"This junk's good for impact and slashing," the girl says. "Not sword points. That's like arrows."

"You've never seen the Iron Throne, you halfwit."

"Snuck in with the kitchen staff," she announces proudly. "Ugly heap of slag. Spiky."

"It judges a king."

"It judges a king's smart enough to keep upright and sit light." Nettles prods at Rhaenyra's drooping shoulder. "Long flight. Long night."

The girl is right. Like a fool, she tells the queen the truth. Rhaenyra knows better than to underestimate fools.

"You watched sheep in the night, didn't you? To keep the wolves away?"

"Eagles," the girl corrects. "And dragons."

"How did you not fall asleep?"

Half an hour later and soaking wet, Rhaenyra's regretting her question. But when the dawn breaks and she rises from the Iron Throne, the only blood is on her hand where she's been squeezing a spiky thistle head all night.

*

In a civil war, anyone who wears a white cloak has choices to make. Lorent Marbrand made his the night Viserys died, but declaring for one queen doesn't mean he has to let the other suffer. That is why he assigns guards to Princess Helaena's doors and often takes a few hours' watch himself. The girl was always kind to him and his Kingsguard brothers. Always singing, one babe or another in her arms. She hasn't made a sound since that night, he's been told. Not since she had to choose between her sons and lost the one she marked for life.

He thought his queen would ignore her existence as much as she ignores Alicent's, but for some reason Rhaenyra remembers Helaena two weeks into their sojourn in King's Landing. She orders the dragonseed girl to take care of their captive. Lorent doesn't appreciate that turn of phrase.

There are too many dragons who all want to fly first in the herd, he thinks. Prince Daemon cheers whenever their armies win a victory, but then he sinks back into a dark mood. Lord Velaryon criticises every decision that isn't his own. Queen Rhaenyra broods and throws herself in passions that last an hour or a day, like her urge to repaint half the hallways or hold a tournament, or learn the Northern harp. Lorent isn't the only one who looks to the coming of the ships from Dragonstone. Walking or prone, seeing or blind, Prince Jacaerys is wise and holds the highest card of being the one man they cannot refuse.

They are all avoiding the question of succession. A king may have teats, but he or she must walk and ride a dragon. Prince Joffrey is young, Prince Aegon even younger, and neither of them had Jacaerys's schooling in the art of power

For now, Lorent does what he can. This time, he gives orders that Nettles is never to be alone with Princess Helaena.

He writes all reports down, as is his habit. The guards change, but they all tell him the same thing: the bastard girl sits on Helaena's bed and whittles dragons from branches of soft wood. She leaves them on the floor. When she's gone, Helaena turns over and watches them.

When the ship from Dragonstone arrives on the tail of the news of the Fishfeed, Lorent carries Jacaerys up to Maegor's Holdfast himself, then leaves the royal family alone. It's as good a time as any to check on Princess Helaena.

Young Glendon nods at him before slipping away. The girl Nettles is there, still sitting on the bed, but Helaena is watching her. The princess is thin where her face was full, and her hair hangs in dust-grey clumps, but her eyes are focussing on Nettles' hands.

"Seasmoke," she says. Her voice is a croak. "Grey."

"I don't have grey wood," Nettles says. "Addam rides him. He flies very high."

"We were born to fly." Helaena struggles, slipping on pillows before she manages to sit up. "We shouldn't have come down from the skies."

White slivers fall under the knife. "Jace says you dream."

"I didn't." Helaena's lips twitch convulsively. "Not when - not -"

"Tell me what you dreamt."

"A black dragon burning," Helaena whispers. "Black and silver and gold and green and red and all burning. Dreamfyre burns. I don't want her to burn."

"Burning's good sometimes. When it's over, you know nothing will hurt you more."

There is a square of dead flesh above the girl's wrist. It looks like an old burn.

"I don't want to burn."

"Three ways," Nettles says. "You fight, you give up, you run."

"You wake up, you fall or you fly."

A week later, Glendon wakes Lorent in the middle of the night, babbling about stolen dragons. They run out to see two beasts circling over the Red Keep. Chained in the outer ward, Syrax and Caraxes call out to the dragons above.

Their riders emerge from Maegor's onto the bridge. Prince Daemon is armed and cursing, but the queen looks calm in her black sleeping gown. She holds her ground as the smaller of the dragons drops from the sky, even though it lands mere yards away from her and the wind from the brown wings whips at her hair.

"Great view," Nettles says as she dismounts. "You should try it. Race you tomorrow night?"

Above them, the silver shape of Dreamfyre turns and heads out over the sea to the south-east. That way lies nothing but waves all the way to Volantis. Lorent recalls the maps of the lands beyond. Myr is there, and then the smoke and ruins of Valyria.

He puts out word that Princess Helaena chose exile.

*

Today Rhaenyra has judged two dozen quarrels, reviewed the progress of three separate battlefronts and patrolled the city, so she judges herself deserving of an afternoon sprawled on the divan in her chambers, eating grapes and lemoncakes. Riding Syrax is more impressive and better exercise than a horse, though she'll never admit it to Nettles. The girl's head is big enough after the prank she and Addam pulled on Daemon before he left.

She knows the Red Keep is larger than Dragonstone castle, but it doesn't feel that way with all the dragons and riders underfoot. Daemon took Ulf and Silverwing with him, but the rest are still swarming, and even Joffrey has been pulled in for the safest missions that don't involve landing. Jace's ideas have them doing short jaunts and random patrols, mimicking Aemond's aerial chevauchée, though they take care to minimise the damage to the land. Rhaenyra needs kingdoms to rule and pay taxes. Collecting gold by dragon takes pressure off King's Landing at least. Vermithor can carry quite a few chests.

Speak of the Stranger and he will come. She recognises the thud of Vermithor's landing. Jace came along with them, she remembers. Her eldest may drag his legs on crutches and have trouble distinguishing letters, but his tongue is not in the least slow when it comes to parting lords from their contributions to royal coffers.

She hears the strikes of crutches against stone soon enough, but the heavy footsteps alongside are unexpected. She's had to put Hugh the Hammer in his place once or twice, once on Syrax herself, and the man has learned respect enough to avoid her outside official occasions. The frustrating thing is that he's not stupid, just stubborn. Blame the dragon blood.

Jacaerys bows to her with exaggerated humility. He no longer wears the circlet of the Prince of Dragonstone, though both she and Joffrey hope he will recover enough to reclaim it. He balances on one crutch and uses the other to knock Hugh's shin.

"She'll-" The rest of Hugh's words are muttered too quietly to hear.

"Speak," Rhaenyra orders. She sits up more easily than three months ago. Long days on the Iron Throne have given her that, hours spent in awareness that any moment of inattention will draw blood from her flesh.

"Hightower," he says quickly. "Hightower's men came to me."

It takes an hour for the entire story to come out, and Rhaenyra is doubtful of his assurances that the only reason he hasn't reported the overtures for a whole turn of the moon is that he was waiting for Daeron's spies to reveal their cards. She thinks this confession has much more to do with Jace's watchful eyes and those long hours flying on Vermithor. Long weeks carrying Jace around before, she remembers, before his strength waxed enough for crutches. She's never paid much attention to Hugh and Ulf, but they were often guarding Jace's room back on Dragonstone. Jace raised them from their base birth and fought at their side at the Gullet.

Ulf was the one first approached, then he introduced Hightower's men to Hugh before Daemon took him north. In Hugh's telling, the other dragonseed was too wine-addled to notice the treason in their speech, but a raven must fly to Maidenpool either way. Let Daemon decide, and praise the gods for the change in plans after Nettles set a goat on him in the stables. With two men and two dragons, the bastards might have well decided to turn cloak after all.

Once Hugh retreats, she pours Jace wine and toasts him. She's never had his ease of knowing men's hearts, which was perhaps why she surrounded herself with people who saw these things clearly. Like Jace's father. All his fathers.

*

The trees shut out the moonlight and hide the stars. Joffrey finds his way mostly by touch. Sometimes he thinks he's lost until the sun rises and marks the east. In songs heroes find their way by natural signs, but those trees have moss everywhere, as far as he can tell in the dark.

He heard about the woods witch in the village. He'd been on foot already, Tyraxes left on the other side of the hill, his hair hidden under a rag like Nettles showed him. This way he could be useful for more than just watching armies from high up. If anyone asks, he always tells them he was squire to a Stormland knight who fell in the battle on the Honeywine, and he's making his way home. He tries not to mention which side his putative master was on until he knows who he's talking to.

The girl at the inn told him the woods witch likes orphans and tells the truth. Joffrey's not an orphan, he's a knight. Or he would be if anyone would let him fight and win his knighthood. Father knighted Hugh and Ulf after the Gullet, but not Jace, because Jace can't walk. No-one knighted Luke, though Luke was the tallest of them and the best at the lance and the sword.

Luke's gone. Baby Viserys is gone. Arrax and Stormcloud are gone, too. Some nights, Joffrey and Aegon huddle under covers and tell each other stories to keep from thinking about them. There are some stories Joffrey never tells.

Joffrey picks his path in the dark, following the rise of the ground to the top of the hill. When he sees the flicker of the fire, it's far too close. Like candles you only see once you're inside the sept.

The witch is small, with a shock of brown hair and a homespun robe. She walks around the low fire, prodding at it with a stick. There's something about the way she smiles that reminds Joffrey of Nettles, but the witch is much older.

"Come closer," she says. "Both of you."

They emerge from the forest on opposite sides of the clearing. The other person is not much taller than Joffrey, with a cloak over leathers just like him. Their hoods are both pulled up against the cold night wind. The maesters say winter is coming.

"I saw fire," the witch says. "I thought you would be taller."

Joffrey bites his lips. He'll grow taller, Jace has a head over him.

"I'm Daryn Fossoway," the boy on the other side says.

By the sound of his voice he's not much older than Joffrey, maybe Luke's age, and he speaks like someone from Oldtown, which matches his Reach name. Like someone with Lord Hightower's army that's marching on King's Landing.

"I'm Joffrey Caron," Joffrey says quickly. It's a good Stormland name, he knows how Stormlanders speak, and House Caron is old enough that there are almost as many Carons around as Fossoways.

"Come closer and sit down," the witch orders.

Joffrey keeps his eyes on the fire. It's safer than looking above it. He has a long knife at his side, but no sword. He has a feeling the witch would curse them if they fought.

"You're wondering how I saw you," the witch says. "I see many things. I see the years turn. I see seasons come. Sometimes I look up and see dragons overhead."

Joffrey holds his breath.

"Sometimes people come to me to ask questions. Sometimes I have answers. Rarely do they not come alone."

"We didn't come here together," the other boy, Daryn, says.

"No. You came together here."

Joffrey wonders if that is due to the witch's magic. Perhaps Daryn has some secret that'll turn the tide of the war, pull back Lord Hightower's army. In a song he'd be wanting to avenge something, or gain something, like a dragon or a princess in marriage. They can give him Shrykos, and maybe even Rhaena's hand. Rhaena's nice, but she's so obsessed with her dragon egg hatching that she scares Joffrey a little.

"I'll go first," Daryn says. He sounds like he's clenching his teeth. "I want to know what to do when everything goes wrong. When honour tells you to keep fighting to avenge your dead, but if you keep fighting it will only send more people to the Stranger."

The witch prods at the fire. "Honour doesn't speak."

"People. They're not my masters, just because I'm young."

"Men often have masters."

"I might as well not." Daryn snorts, wraps the cloak around himself in a way that looks familiar. "Father's dead. I don't know where my mother or oldest brother are."

"Do you have other brothers?" Joffrey asks. Going to ask Jace is always his first thought with a problem. "It - I think it helps, even just to talk, even if you don't do what they say."

"No." The light shines on Daryn's clenched hands. "He'd see the kingdoms burn before he gives in. He'll set them on fire himself. I have to solve this, Aemond won't-"

He's trailing off by the end, voice growing fainter, but Joffrey hears the name clearly. He can feel the knife at his hip. He remembers all the places Daemon showed him to aim for, to kill cleanly and quickly. He can kick the fire, send embers flying into the other boy's eyes, and be on him in a moment. In a moment, Lord Hightower's army may be defenceless to aerial attacks.

"You've got the better dragon," he says instead. "Vhagar's a fat old sow. Tessarion's prettier."

Daeron - not Daryn - jumps to his feet. Joffrey can see him going through the same calculations. He's sure Daeron's got a weapon too.

Then Daeron drops his hands. "You're the answer to my question."

The woods witch gives them potatoes roasted in the embers, before they leave. They find Tyraxes and Tessarion sharing a deer.

*

Corlys feels the weight of his eighth decade, but the good news lends energy to his steps on the bridge to Maegor's. The raven's message is in Addam's carefully tutored hand, for all that the words are Jacaerys's. It warms his heart to read of the victory his boys achieved together. He hopes that when he's gone, they'll work together just as well on the Small Council. Master of Ships and Hand of the Queen, most likely. Though Alyn is the one who loves sailing the most. Master of Laws for Addam, perhaps, because the boy has a keen sense of justice.

He finds Rhaenyra in her solar, accompanied by Nettles. They are sorting through the pile of rings that were gifts for Rhaenyra's name day, a week gone, arranging them on a carven wooden flame with multiple branches that he's noticed the girl whittling all the past month. Rhaenyra jumps to her feet with a speed that belies her weekly dragon flights that put King's Landing in such awe.

"They are victorious," Corlys says. "Jace writes that the traitors' corpses are strewn all around the walls of Tumbleton. Lord Dustin lay down his life, but slew both Ormund and Brynden Hightower. Daeron fell to Addam. Tessarion is injured, but they hope her wing will heal, and she has taken a liking to Seasmoke."

Rhaenyra laughs with a girl's brightness. Her crown is resting on a pillow, but her hair is braided with its own silver and gold, and they both know that for all that two of her brothers are still alive, Daeron's Hightower army had been the greatest threat. She is truly Queen of the Seven Kingdoms now.

"We'll have a feast in your heir's honour," she offers, then catches his hands. "Corlys, we're safe!"

He lets her pull him into a brief embrace. Smiling, she looks so much like the girl Laenor pledged to, the one who counselled Laena before his daughter's wedding, before bloody birthing bed and Qarl Correy's dagger robbed him of both his children. It feels good to see her without the cloak of grief and fury.

"I had the word put out," he tells her. "It should quieten the city. I don't like some of the whispers Mysaria has brought me. A few mad septons even preach against dragons."

Rhaenyra crosses the room again to pour them wine. "Let her have their bellies slit. The dragons will appreciate the variety in food."

"Too thin," Nettles says. "They're used to fat tasty sheep."

They all laugh. Corlys thinks that if Alyn ends up truly set on the girl, he wouldn't mind a few bastard grandchildren with brown eyes.

The door slams open. Joffrey pushes past Ser Lorent and Ser Glendon. The boy has shot up in the last year, and the princely circlet shines on his hair.

He's pale as the Stranger, his lips bitten bloody. His eyes burn.

"Did you order it?" he demands from Rhaenyra. "Did you order Daeron killed?"

She sets down the wineskin. "We are at war, Joff. I knew it was a probable outcome, yes."

"I gave my word to him. I swore an oath that he would be safe."

"Joffrey-"

"I gave my word." He's pacing now, cloak swirling as he turns. "I gave my word there would be no more death."

Corlys sighs as he sits down. "It wasn't a viable plan. Ormund Hightower would never go along with it, not while Aegon and Aemond remain alive."

"Aegon's an idiot and Aemond's a maniac," Joffrey snaps at him. "We could have had peace with Daeron, he'd bend the knee, he told me he would! The Hightowers wouldn't dare go against a dragon!"

"Dragons aren't invincible," Rhaenyra says. "Dorne proved it. Valyria proved it. Joffrey, you're young. When it comes to war and power, we do what must be done."

The boy whirls, turning on her with a speed that makes the two white cloaks at the door step forward. "Did Jace know?"

Rhaenyra has grown just as pale. "Jace planned it. He went with Vermithor to overseee the attack."

Joffrey flinches, like a seaman struck by arrow in battle. He takes a step back, then another.

"We do what must be done," she repeats.

"The Targaryen way," he whispers. "Do what must be done and don't _see_ the blood under your feet. You're so good at being blind now that you can't see even the blood you spill yourself."

Rhaenyra stands in front of him without a word. Her braid is ragged at the end, where the hair catches between her armour and the blades when she sits the Iron Throne.

"Daemon assigned me an escort in the Vale," Joffrey says. "Men he trusted, men who worked for him when he was married to Rhea Royce. They liked to tell stories about him. One of them told me about how a decade ago, Daemon asked them to wait for a ship to come in and kill everyone on board, in payment for some insult the captain had offered him. That ship was coming from Spicetown, in the first week of the third moon of the year of the Red Spring."

Corlys remembers a storm in the north that brought cold so intense that none on deck of the Ice Wolf could breathe the bare air. This feels something like that day.

Joffrey stands like a statue, only his lips moving. "I described the shapes of the Correy arms. He recognised them from a man killed on that ship, and named the colours."

Nettles jumps to her feet in time to catch Rhaenyra's arms, helping her into a chair. Corlys is one better, already sitting. If his Sea Snake were a true serpent, he would ride it to emerge from the waves and swallow Daemon Targaryen whole.

Joffrey bows. That is Daemon's bow, Corlys thinks. Daemon's courtly manners, Daemon's habit of slipping his cloak to one side, Daemon's pacing in anger. Daemon's hands hung that dagger at his waist, Daemon's words instructed him in ways to please and to hurt.

He wonders if Daemon would be proud of the boy.

Rhaenyra lifts her head as Joffrey leaves the room. "Ser Glendon. Please go with Prince Joffrey. Wherever he wishes."

Corlys watches her. There is grief and fury in her eyes, distilled into a pale fire. If she chooses to close her eyes now, if she chooses Daemon over Laenor's memory...

Daeron is dead, but there are Aegon and Aemond, and he will turn his cloak before he suffers Daemon to live.

"Ser Lorent," she calls out in a strong, bright voice. "Please ask Maester Gerardys and the Lady Mysaria to attend me. I would have her words, and his quill. If she doesn't want to come, drag her."

Corlys is aware, vaguely, of Nettles pressing a wine cup to his lips. He takes it in his hands to make her go away.

"What will you write?" he asks, when his throat works again.

She turns those eyes at him, burning like dragonfire. "What the fuck do you think I’ll write? I will order Lord Mooton of Maidenpool to arrest my lord husband for high treason."

*

Jacaerys curses his disobedient legs the third time his crutches slip on the stairs. Hugh doesn't even wait for his sign, just scoops him up and carries him the rest of the way to the Hand's audience chamber. They're the last to arrive, pushing between Nettles and Addam. Alyn and Baela are on the other side, supporting Lord Velaryon, next to Mysaria the mistress of whisperers. The queen his mother is flanked by two Queensguard, while Medrick Manderly faces her with his hands on Ulf the White's shoulders.

Silverwing's rider is swaying, still in the dusty leathers. Nettles whispers to them that he flew straight from Harrenhall.

Ulf's eyes find Jace across the room, and the man nods. Jace wonders if he hopes for the same intercession he gave Hugh. Daemon sent a raven that he would give Ulf a chance to prove his loyalty, but Daemon's word doesn't count much now.

"I speak as I was bidden," Ulf says. "Lord Daemon told me to wait and see, then speak of it to the Queen and Prince Jacaerys."

Rhaenyra raises her hand to bid him speak.

Jace is glad for Hugh's arm still around him. Even if he had doubts whether Ulf speaks the truth, he can see Daemon in his words. Hear him, all the tales of Valyria and the Age of Heroes that he used to tell them when they were boys, Luke and Joff and him.

Daemon befriended the maester of Maidenpool and his suspicions were raised enough that he had Ulf steal the letter ordering his arrest. The maester was left bound, while Daemon and Ulf took flight that night.

Ulf doesn't try to speculate on Daemon's thoughts, and his account is the more honest for it. He tells of the fourteen days of waiting in Harrenhall, during which time Daemon did not speak a word. He describes the evening of the fourteenth day, as Aemond Targaryen descended on Vhagar when the sun was setting. None knew where they waited, but the witch who shared Aemond's bed had seen Daemon's death in a cloud and a fire.

Ulf and Aemond's paramour watched from the towers of Harrenhall as Caraxes and Vhagar clashed over God's Eye. They saw the dragons locked in a deadly grasp, each killing the other even as they fell. They saw Daemon leap and take both Aemond's eye and his life.

They saw the four of them hit the water. Only Caraxes emerged, to breathe his last under the walls of Harrenhall.

In the silence, Jace hears someone swallow convulsively. He thinks it's Mysaria. She was Daemon's lover once, he heard.

Rhaenyra steps forward. She must be fresh from audience, still in her black armour, the one that makes people mutter about Maegor and Visenya.

"Why didn't you help him?" she asks. "Why didn't you attack?"

Ulf still doesn't straighten fully. He presses a hand to his side, then raises it to show them the palm covered in blood and pus.

"Lord Daemon stabbed me in the gut when we landed in Harrenhall," he says. "He knew Aemond wouldn't come unless he was alone."

Jace fixes his eyes on a window. He knows who'll be doing the same thing, who knew Daemon well enough to believe his death only faced with this proof he sought it. Mother. Lord Velaryon. Mysaria. Joffrey, when he hears of it on Dragonstone.

They will all mourn, he thinks. They will mourn Daemon Targaryen, the whirwind, the dragon in human form. When a dragon wants something, it won't care who it's hurting to get it. When a dragon loves you, it'll die for you.

They never found Vermax's body. But wide as the God's Eye is, it's shallower than the sea.

"I will go to Harrenhall," Jace says. "I will bring them back."

*

As she climbs to Dragonstone Castle, Rhaenyra counts the dead she has loved.

Her mother is the first loss she remembers clearly. Criston, dead only recently but dead to her for years. And the three she always counted as hers: Laenor she never thought she'd love, Harwin she loved too easily, and Daemon she loved despite and because of what he was. Rhaenys and Laena, the mother and sister she always wanted.

Luke still hurts the most. Viserys, her bright little one. Visenya the monster she birthed who never took a breath.

Arrax. Meleys. Vermax. Vhagar. Caraxes. Shrykos. Jaehaerys. Maelor. And so many others, starting with old, kind Lord Beesbury and ending with poor fat Ser Robert Quince. They loved her enough to die for her. She has to love them in return.

She thinks this is the lesson of this war for her. She was the Realm's Delight in her youth, but now she's learned how to return this affection. How to open up and bleed.

She wonders if the chill is winter in the air, or the naked blades carried by the men who escort her. She does not recognise their faces. So many on Aegon's side have died that now all he has left are these bastards and hedge knights.

The raven reached King's Landing three days after the Storming of the Dragonpit. The city still smoked, the gates of the Red Keep remained shut, and after months of silence Aegon her brother demanded her return to Dragonstone. She had taken his city, but he took her castle. And her son.

Her return, for Joffrey's life. She doesn't need the memory of Corlys's roar to know Aegon is lying.

She has lost two of her boys already, and Jace will never walk or read again. Two days after receiving the letter, she was on a galley that left the harbour before dawn.

Now she walks under the burnt corpses of her loyal men. The smell of burnt flesh mixes with that of a restless dragon. And another scent. Dragonsblood, she thinks. She smelled it in the Dragonpit, not a week hence.

Sunfyre the Golden, the crippled, the half-winged, fills the courtyard with his length and his stench. Some of the bones he has strewn around are too big to be horse. With a stab of pain, she recognises the colour of a scrap of wing. Joffrey's beautiful Tyraxes. All her poor boys are dragonless now.

But Tyraxes sold his corpse dearly. Aegon's Sunfyre smells of death and decay, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Both his wings are in tatters, and one eye only remains.

He mirrors his master. For Aegon is waiting in a chair on the balcony above. He has grown fat and slovenly, the burns from Meleys's fire still oozing. It seems her hated brother the usurper no longer has the strength to stand.

And he is as good as dragonless, for Sunfyre is dying.

"Welcome, sister," Aegon says.

At his gesture, a man in a white cloak drags Joffrey onto the balcony. There are burns on her son's face and arms, healing well, and she knows that Aegon's wounds are Joffrey's victory. Her brave boy made sure the usurper paid a price.

"Dear brother," she says, as if they were meeting in a ballroom. "I had hoped that you were dead."

"After you. You are the elder."

She walks forward, judging the distance to the doors she knows so well. She is no warrior, but if she could get within a dagger's length of him. "I came as you wished. Free my son."

"Of course," he says and smiles at her surprise. "A Strong bastard is no threat to me. And since you killed my sons, I will take your trueborn heir for mine. I'd ask you to write to Velaryon with instructions to hand my namesake over, but if you still held his loyalty, you'd be here at the head of a fleet. I think your ships are as lost as your dragons."

The Dragonpit, she thinks. It would be foolish to think he has no loyalists in the city to let him know of that night of fire and blood.

"I have my loyal men still," she says. "They will find me soon."

"If they search the seven hells, mayhaps." Aegon raises his hand. "Tom!"

As the men seize her, Rhaenyra laughs. "They won't have to look far. From the back of a dragon, the view is very clear."

As one, all in the courtyard raise their eyes to the sky. The four dots are growing with every moment, one visibly larger than the others. Vermithor, Seasmoke, Sheepstealer and Moondancer. Even of the ones stabled in the Dragonpit, Addam's fearless sally saved all but Shrykos, though street gossip spoke of a dozen dead beasts. Sunfyre lifts his head and roars in helpless fury.

Standing here in Dragonstone, Rhaenyra is the Dragon Queen, for all that Syrax remains in the Red Keep. And after the death of Vhagar and the loss of Tessarion, all her brother has is this rotting wyrm.

Aegon lifts himself up to the railing by his arms, as if his legs could no longer hold him. "Do it!" he screams. "Now!"

Someone grabs Rhaenyra from behind and drags her towards Sunfyre. When she turns around he seizes her hands when she tries to claw his eyes out, and she knows him. Alfred Broome, old and bitter and now turncloak.

He cuts at her breast, drawing blood. If it's an assassination, it's inept.

She realises his aim as Sunfyre turns his head. Fresh blood offered to a dragon. Nettles cut her sheep's throats before feeding them to Syrax.

Someone is screaming. It isn't her, because she's Targaryen and fearless as she faces the dragon. Sunfyre is drawing breath, the air around his fangs glowing already with the heat. A death worth of a queen.

Something falls soft and wet on the flagstones on Sunfyre's other side. Rhaenyra and the dragon both turn. If she could breathe fire, she would.

Joffrey, her brave Joffrey, has seized Aegon's own dagger and opened his belly before throwing him against the balcony railing. Guts and blood cascade down to Sunfyre, a much more tempting meal than the scratch on Rhaenyra's breast.

Whatever bastard Aegon has in a white cloak reacts too late to save his false king, but he still drives his sword through Joffrey's back. Rhaenyra sees her boy vomit blood before Sunfyre's flame envelops the balcony, burning king and prince and knight.

When it dies, she is undisputed Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

*

The campfire crackles. The mule Maester picks at a patch of thistles in the gloom, chewing loudly.

"So that's the end?"

"Of that story. It's called the Dance of the Dragons, and that was the last proper dragon battle of that war, until Daeron's conquest of Dorne."

"Something had to happen next."

"Something always happens next. Rhaenyra sat the Iron Throne. She was kind of stern. You know, you probably swear by her."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do. I heard you say Maegor's Teats. That's Rhaenyra, they called her King Maegor with Teats."

"Huh." Dunk pokes at the fire. "I thought you said Moondancer there, at the end. Listing the dragons."

"I did. Moondancer was Lady Baela's dragon. She was Daemon's daughter by Laena Velaryon, and she married Addam Velaryon after Prince Jacaerys died."

"Is your Moondancer named after that one?"

Egg wrinkles his nose. "My Moondancer _is_ that one. That's why she's large enough that we could fly together. If you ever stop being scared of flying."

"Shut up and sleep," Dunk grumbles. "Unless you'd rather I beat you instead."

Egg giggles. Dunk decides they need to avoid Summerhall for longer periods. Egg always gets airs after riding his dragon.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "You wake up, you fall or you fly." - with apologies to Neil Gaiman. I'm fairly certain my version of Helaena is on first name terms with the Lord Dream.
> 
> Some dialogue lifted from the original novella, where it was actually provided in events this AU didn't butterfly away.
> 
> Both of the Dance of Dragons novellas and their corresponding segment in the World of Ice and Fire lack a tantalising amount of detail and contradict each other at times (up to and including Vermax's gender), so I had to fill in to the best of my ability. Among other things:
> 
> If Daemon had objected to Rhaenyra's elder boys at all, he had nine years before the Dance to arrange accidents or otherwise take steps to remove them from succession. Instead he betrothed Jace and Luke to his own girls, and someone gave Jace a very good education in strategy and diplomacy. Additionally, Daemon's bad marriage to Rhea was childless and he took Mysaria losing their child badly. Therefore my headcanon is that Daemon thinks the more children, the better, and is a fantastic if somewhat unhinged parent to all seven. Luke would definitely be his favourite because this kid put out Aemond's eye when he was five, isn't that just the most awesome thing ever?
> 
> Genetics will tell and Jace knows very well he's only Targaryen on one side. He'll still stab anyone who calls him a bastard. Laenor showed him where to aim the moment he was big enough to pick up a knife.
> 
> Corlys and Rhaenys knew very well about Laenor's proclivities. They initially had mixed feelings about Rhaenyra's children, but Laenor didn't. After he put his foot down, they came around and dote on their step-grandsons.
> 
> Corlys and Rhaenys never liked Daemon much, but after turning over every stone they haven't been able to find proof of his guilt in Laenor's death. They don't think he's that good, and he's still their granddaughters' father.
> 
> Rhaenyra grew up learning not to trust courtiers, while Corlys escaped from responsibility with his common-born sailors and misses that camaraderie. Thus both of them are predisposed to confide in Nettles when actually face to face.
> 
> Helaena's visions are my own invention, but someone in almost every Targaryen generation has those and she was the best fit.


End file.
